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Post by marxlives on Apr 2, 2019 21:32:51 GMT
True, much of sales is how customers "feel" about a product. Which is why GW still doesn't have official forums. Toxic posts can do a lot of damage to how people "feel" about a product and damage sales. BoLS has articles and players at my store have stories about how unbalanced 8th 40k is or how AoS lacks tactical choices, GW doesn't run official tournaments, have a PG program or official forums but it still sells. Why? Because their customers feel it is a good game. And at the end of the day it tops Warmachine, Malifaux (or The Otherside), and Infinity in sales. When players figure out that showing up and playing games is what makes a game stay around. Not rankings or SKUs, PP will make that chart again. If you get a chance, check out the online community for Battletech. Has a huge SKU and was hampered by legal issues and they are still going strong. Is it ever going to be a 40k killer? No but does every game need to be a 40k, Halo, WoW killer to be profitable and worth playing? Honestly, I don't know how many people actually consider 40K a good game, but more of a "good enough" game. They enjoy the universe, models, and stories of games, but all too many will tell you how horrible the imbalance is and always has been. But then, GW has not really ever tried to make a seriously balanced game for competitive play (though some rumors about of some of the upcoming 'board games'), but enough of a game for the customer to justify to themselves that it is worth pushing multiples of Citadel models across the table in the semblance of combat. Miniature sales are their primary motivator, not games sales. Oddly enough, I think this is part of what makes 40K so successful. You buy loads of plastic and get drunk over them having a ridiculous game. It's also why their simplification from 7th Edition (along with killing the Choice Detachments and Formations) went over so well. Looking up complicated rules across 200 pages in several books while you can barely walk a curvy line doesn't usually work. Thinking that privately owned businesses have the capital to start the equivalent of GW stores that an LLC can is not very realistic. PP would be better served by focusing on logistics and distribution to allow local retailers outside of U.S. to carry WMH at a better cost. I am pretty sure PP has built up the same relationships if they are contacted, though they do not have any distribution centers outside of their headquarters. Again comparing a privately owned business to a LLC doesn't really make sense. And SKUs are not equal either, PP's SKUs are more similar to Battle Tech than 40k in size. However the original point holds. GW no longer has an Outrider Program nor do they run any official tournaments. They are hardly ever praised for their rules, or balance, but they sell well. Why, because people feel it is a good game. Now PP does sell a very gritty game and I have gained players because people feel 40ks removal of arcs or anything can damage anything via mathhammer is turning them off. But there is room for improvement and I think this has to do with the math of PP. I think if PP kept all their core rules but changed hits and damage off of a modified FFG style of hit dice and miss dice, the game can run quickly without losing its grit.
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mrtuna
Junior Strategist
Posts: 117
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Post by mrtuna on Apr 2, 2019 23:36:33 GMT
Honestly, I don't know how many people actually consider 40K a good game, but more of a "good enough" game. They enjoy the universe, models, and stories of games, but all too many will tell you how horrible the imbalance is and always has been. But then, GW has not really ever tried to make a seriously balanced game for competitive play (though some rumors about of some of the upcoming 'board games'), but enough of a game for the customer to justify to themselves that it is worth pushing multiples of Citadel models across the table in the semblance of combat. Miniature sales are their primary motivator, not games sales. Oddly enough, I think this is part of what makes 40K so successful. You buy loads of plastic and get drunk over them having a ridiculous game. It's also why their simplification from 7th Edition (along with killing the Choice Detachments and Formations) went over so well. Looking up complicated rules across 200 pages in several books while you can barely walk a curvy line doesn't usually work. Thinking that privately owned businesses have the capital to start the equivalent of GW stores that an LLC can is not very realistic. PP would be better served by focusing on logistics and distribution to allow local retailers outside of U.S. to carry WMH at a better cost. I am pretty sure PP has built up the same relationships if they are contacted, though they do not have any distribution centers outside of their headquarters. Again comparing a privately owned business to a LLC doesn't really make sense. And SKUs are not equal either, PP's SKUs are more similar to Battle Tech than 40k in size. However the original point holds. GW no longer has an Outrider Program nor do they run any official tournaments. They are hardly ever praised for their rules, or balance, but they sell well. Why, because people feel it is a good game. Now PP does sell a very gritty game and I have gained players because people feel 40ks removal of arcs or anything can damage anything via mathhammer is turning them off. But there is room for improvement and I think this has to do with the math of PP. I think if PP kept all their core rules but changed hits and damage off of a modified FFG style of hit dice and miss dice, the game can run quickly without losing its grit. Why do you use LLC like it has anything to do with size? There are C Corperations making $0-$1000 a year in revenue. There are private equity LLCs making billions in revenue. Company structure matters at tax time, not in how big ornsuccessful a company is. You can go form your own C corp tomorrow for about $500.
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Post by Charistoph on Apr 3, 2019 2:57:38 GMT
Honestly, I don't know how many people actually consider 40K a good game, but more of a "good enough" game. They enjoy the universe, models, and stories of games, but all too many will tell you how horrible the imbalance is and always has been. But then, GW has not really ever tried to make a seriously balanced game for competitive play (though some rumors about of some of the upcoming 'board games'), but enough of a game for the customer to justify to themselves that it is worth pushing multiples of Citadel models across the table in the semblance of combat. Miniature sales are their primary motivator, not games sales. Oddly enough, I think this is part of what makes 40K so successful. You buy loads of plastic and get drunk over them having a ridiculous game. It's also why their simplification from 7th Edition (along with killing the Choice Detachments and Formations) went over so well. Looking up complicated rules across 200 pages in several books while you can barely walk a curvy line doesn't usually work. Thinking that privately owned businesses have the capital to start the equivalent of GW stores that an LLC can is not very realistic. PP would be better served by focusing on logistics and distribution to allow local retailers outside of U.S. to carry WMH at a better cost. I am pretty sure PP has built up the same relationships if they are contacted, though they do not have any distribution centers outside of their headquarters. Again comparing a privately owned business to a LLC doesn't really make sense. And SKUs are not equal either, PP's SKUs are more similar to Battle Tech than 40k in size. And none of this has anything to do with what you quoted. Business size has absolutely nothing to do with capacity to right good rules or how players will interact with them. It may apply to how many skus you can create, but that's a different story and had absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I was talking about the purpose of the company and the goal of its game. Warhammer is made to be a beer & pretzels game while WMH was designed to be a sport. The closest I mentioned was that GW was trying to add a couple competitive level of games to their list, but I'll believe it when I see the reviews on it. However the original point holds. GW no longer has an Outrider Program nor do they run any official tournaments. They are hardly ever praised for their rules, or balance, but they sell well. Why, because people feel it is a good game. Now PP does sell a very gritty game and I have gained players because people feel 40ks removal of arcs or anything can damage anything via mathhammer is turning them off. But there is room for improvement and I think this has to do with the math of PP. I think if PP kept all their core rules but changed hits and damage off of a modified FFG style of hit dice and miss dice, the game can run quickly without losing its grit. I've never heard of their Outrider Program, but I used to have a forum account with them shortly before they put out that dumpster fire by dropping it down a black hole.
They used to run their own tournaments on a worldwide scale, until a group decided to game the system in favor of a certain faction. Then they started petering out until Warhammer World is their only official tournament, with their local shops only putting them out on their individual recognizance.
But, sadly, no, only new players every consider Warhammer to be a good game. They usually realize how wrong they are in this after they get roflstomped at their list-building stage. Most of the continuing players will tell you it is not a good game (it's actually quite horrible when taken as just a game), but it is good enough to keep playing it because they enjoy the hobby and the people they hang out with while doing it. Considering that Warhammer is designed to sell models through a social experience, then it is doing its job well enough. That is what I mean by, "not good, but good enough".
Where people get disillusioned by Warhammer is when they want that clear, crunchy ruleset that is balanced while still offering many of those other hobby and social aspects. This is where PP tried to step in to. Unfortunately, it drew in the extreme gamers of the crowd who tend to quote Conan the pit fighter while ignoring the actual sportsmanship aspects of Page 5. These have taken over a lot of the WMH metas out there, and those have found some solace back in the now-less-complicated Warhammer or Fantasy Flight's Star Wars games.
A good portion of the Phoenix Arizona meta has been affected by this to the point that I only saw one person selling WMH stuff at the last Gamer's Garage Sale, and that was as much to sell the commission painting as anything else (I didn't secure a table in time). I have had old friends who used to love WMH for its gameplay balance tell me that they dropped it because the local store's group had turned Extremeroller. The last JML was cross-metropolis, but only garnered up to the second point set before dying out. We still have our Steamrollers running every month, and we had our regular LVO goers put in, but many of the old hats went there to play other games, not WMH.
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Post by beardmonk on Apr 5, 2019 8:23:34 GMT
Fundamentally, while there are many issue that PP needs to sort out, people need to realise that in order for a meta to grow, develop and be sustainable, you need new blood (of any age). So you need to be friendly, open and willing to take a break from your 2 list steamroller practices to develop new players. Maybe even…. You know…… not play SR for a bit and try new narrative elements, painting etc, to help grow your gaming group.
One of the things that I have always been grateful for is where I play in London, the gaming group is like this. Many of them are actually high level players, who travel to the big UK tournaments and sometimes over to Europe as well. But I have never been rofflestomped by any of them. It’s always a social affair when I travel down. I always get feedback on my games, play choices and lists. We do sometimes play funny scenarios etc. Basically they operate under the Bill & Ted mantra of “be excellent to each other”. What has be the result of this? There are now more players in the group at the beginner to intermediate level. The group is more sustainable. The meta grows.
While is am critical of many of the decisions that PP have made in the Mk3 era, TBH the biggest issue for WM/H atm is the community’s attitude towards the game.
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Post by marxlives on Apr 5, 2019 16:06:04 GMT
Fundamentally, while there are many issue that PP needs to sort out, people need to realise that in order for a meta to grow, develop and be sustainable, you need new blood (of any age). So you need to be friendly, open and willing to take a break from your 2 list steamroller practices to develop new players. Maybe even…. You know…… not play SR for a bit and try new narrative elements, painting etc, to help grow your gaming group.
One of the things that I have always been grateful for is where I play in London, the gaming group is like this. Many of them are actually high level players, who travel to the big UK tournaments and sometimes over to Europe as well. But I have never been rofflestomped by any of them. It’s always a social affair when I travel down. I always get feedback on my games, play choices and lists. We do sometimes play funny scenarios etc. Basically they operate under the Bill & Ted mantra of “be excellent to each other”. What has be the result of this? There are now more players in the group at the beginner to intermediate level. The group is more sustainable. The meta grows.
While is am critical of many of the decisions that PP have made in the Mk3 era, TBH the biggest issue for WM/H atm is the community’s attitude towards the game.
I can roll with that. I am still rebuilding my town's local meta after to ultra competitive 40k players decided to come in and brought an ultra competitive mindset to a community that really is "working Joe" driven. I had taken a break from PG'ing for awhile and a green but well intention-ed player tried to drag ANY player into our group and that is when the ultra comps came in. You want to be open to people but quality and purpose of community is important. Some scenes love the super ultra competitive environment and some are working class casual nights. It is really up to the community leader to manage what kind of community they really want it to be at the end of the day. And I agree, community perception is a big impediment. Did PP drop the ball on release...ya, and personally I think PP tried to imitated GW practices to elevate the business to a LLC with the Mk3 release and lost sight at the beginning of what made them special. Page 5 included. Was Page 5 not "PC", ya but it was supposed to be blatantly unapologetic. PP has come a long way since the Mk3 release and course correcting their business practices and brand. So I agree at this point, the biggest issue is community. I think feedback is good, and I think organized community feedback written to the game devs through customer service is even better. However, there is a group of toxic people who think that somehow trash talking the game non-stop = brand success. It reminds of when 8th dropped for 40k. Was and is 8th the most tactically deep, well written, or balanced version of 40k....no, but people believed it was, so it sold. And I think this is tragic with WMH. Because despite the math of Xd6 + Y = or > Def the game is really solid with a lot of options to play, but people chose to negatively view a solid system. As a side rant, it kind of reminds me of what happened to NQ Prime, which was one of the best mags I subscribed to since classic Dragon. It died because people didn't subscribe to it, which is fine but at the same time you will see people who never subscribed complain that it got cancelled. I just shake my head and think "be the change you want to see man".
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Post by marxlives on Apr 5, 2019 16:11:54 GMT
Thinking that privately owned businesses have the capital to start the equivalent of GW stores that an LLC can is not very realistic. PP would be better served by focusing on logistics and distribution to allow local retailers outside of U.S. to carry WMH at a better cost. I am pretty sure PP has built up the same relationships if they are contacted, though they do not have any distribution centers outside of their headquarters. Again comparing a privately owned business to a LLC doesn't really make sense. And SKUs are not equal either, PP's SKUs are more similar to Battle Tech than 40k in size. However the original point holds. GW no longer has an Outrider Program nor do they run any official tournaments. They are hardly ever praised for their rules, or balance, but they sell well. Why, because people feel it is a good game. Now PP does sell a very gritty game and I have gained players because people feel 40ks removal of arcs or anything can damage anything via mathhammer is turning them off. But there is room for improvement and I think this has to do with the math of PP. I think if PP kept all their core rules but changed hits and damage off of a modified FFG style of hit dice and miss dice, the game can run quickly without losing its grit. Why do you use LLC like it has anything to do with size? There are C Corperations making $0-$1000 a year in revenue. There are private equity LLCs making billions in revenue. Company structure matters at tax time, not in how big ornsuccessful a company is. You can go form your own C corp tomorrow for about $50 I am pretty sure you can use some Google fu, do your own research and compare the size between a privately owned business PP and GW a publicly traded one. "How do you know Mom and Pop Bakery isn't as big as McDonald's?" Well, we all have the capacity to do research, I am confident you can figure it out.
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Post by gobber on Apr 5, 2019 21:06:00 GMT
Well there's definitely a decline in google searches since the mk2 days (the big spike being mk3's launch): Found similar declines in searches for faction names, etc. In contrast, 40k has been on a a slight upward trend again the last 5 years after a steady decline for the previous ten but still dwarfing PP's games. AoS is outdoing warmachine too. X wing (yellow) seems to have declined slightly since its 1.0 days, though legion's back on an upward trend since the release bounce wore off. Malifaux has also fallen off significantly.
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Post by michael on Apr 6, 2019 19:01:23 GMT
It seems like I remember that someone in this (mostly) dumpster fire of a thread was asking sensible questions about how to revive interest in games. Here's a video that (based upon some severe skimming) seems to do a very good job of articulating the relevant points at hand. (okay, i can't make a video link apparently, because of reasons)
Reliability, regularity, passion and inclusivity.
If you look happy, people want to be happy with you.
Clean, polite, welcoming, funny, not in a clown way.
Show that you're happy that someone would be even remotely interested in your weird stuff.
Never use negative sentences. Let them complain and turn their complaint into assets.
Sell the experience, don't sell the win.
Identify the assets of your game and the needs of the person you're talking to and make them coincide.
That's basically the exact playbook I have always followed when giving demos of WM/H. (If Jagoff McGee is still lurking around here and doesn't believe it's possible to have an approximately 80% conversion rate for demos-to-a-purchase, seriously, there's the recipe right there. All it takes is practice.)
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Post by michael on Apr 6, 2019 19:09:25 GMT
(Re: dumpster fire. There are people who are not part of said fire. You're obviously clued-in enough to know if you qualify. )
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shiver
Junior Strategist
Posts: 150
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Post by shiver on Apr 7, 2019 0:21:01 GMT
It seems like I remember that someone in this (mostly) dumpster fire of a thread was asking sensible questions about how to revive interest in games. Here's a video that (based upon some severe skimming) seems to do a very good job of articulating the relevant points at hand. (okay, i can't make a video link apparently, because of reasons)
Reliability, regularity, passion and inclusivity.
If you look happy, people want to be happy with you.
Clean, polite, welcoming, funny, not in a clown way.
Show that you're happy that someone would be even remotely interested in your weird stuff.
Never use negative sentences. Let them complain and turn their complaint into assets.
Sell the experience, don't sell the win.
Identify the assets of your game and the needs of the person you're talking to and make them coincide.
That's basically the exact playbook I have always followed when giving demos of WM/H. (If Jagoff McGee is still lurking around here and doesn't believe it's possible to have an approximately 80% conversion rate for demos-to-a-purchase, seriously, there's the recipe right there. All it takes is practice.)
First, it was 9/10 or a 90% success rate. now its 8/10. if you keep going, you may actually hit a number that is realistic. Also, congratulations, you have officially described "being in society 101". I don't think anyone giving demos is showing up in a T-shirt still encrusted with last nights puke from their bar hopping, but I suppose there is always that one in 100. Also, seriously, grow a Firetrucking backbone. If you have a problem with me (and its obvious you do, same here, obv.) call me out. use your words. You can call me out so other people don't get looped into this. Not everyone will know what you mean by jagoff McGee and some might not have the full context. So please, be specific if not for your own personal backbone growth and development, but for others' sake. Lastly, you, YES YOU are part of this dumpster fire. I've seen you spew as much shit as i have. JFC...if you are or identify as a male, please, PLEASE grow some balls and stop being so passive aggressive.
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marke
Junior Strategist
Posts: 187
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Post by marke on Apr 7, 2019 12:57:51 GMT
(Re: dumpster fire. There are people who are not part of said fire. You're obviously clued-in enough to know if you qualify. ) Is this the positive approach you talking about?
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shiver
Junior Strategist
Posts: 150
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Post by shiver on Apr 7, 2019 19:14:25 GMT
(Re: dumpster fire. There are people who are not part of said fire. You're obviously clued-in enough to know if you qualify. ) Is this the positive approach you talking about? You caught that too huh?
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Post by cainuslupus on Apr 7, 2019 22:30:33 GMT
(Re: dumpster fire. There are people who are not part of said fire. You're obviously clued-in enough to know if you qualify. ) FFS, I will give you internet 101 - if you believe a thread is a dumpster fire - don't paticipate, don't give it oxygen and especially don't attack people inside it. If it's just dumpster fire by some trolls it will die out by itself. It has not 80%, not 90% but 100% success rate. It's 100% more than your "sand in my vajaja" posts will ever have. And I give it to you for free. Now I hope that PP have a plan to salvage MK3 other than trying the same things that failed over its course because I would love for it to rebound. I really hope that Oblivion book will be return to form and things I loved about the system. But right now MK3 IS a dumpster fire, especially if you remember key ideas behind it: unclutering the rules and making game more accessible to new players. It might be entertaining dumpster fire, but still. But where I stand (dying community in which if I would want to sell my Legion army I would have to stand in line with people who try to do the same thing for at least year) the signs are obvious - things ain't pretty.
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Post by netdragon on Apr 8, 2019 10:31:52 GMT
Besides rules, PP has a real problem with product design (not miniature quality, but bundling, pricing and related topics) and marketing.
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Post by frumiousbandersnatch on Apr 9, 2019 18:16:59 GMT
Besides rules, PP has a real problem with product design (not miniature quality, but bundling, pricing and related topics) and marketing. Been saying this for a while. The game is actually quite good these days and there are many different ways to play (even if the "average" player ignores almost all of them). Doesn't matter how good your game is if you can't get people to play it, though. PP's starter products are pretty garbage. Their marketing and community presence is near nonexistent in every LGS I go to. Without PG they have nobody selling their game for them. The core crowd will keep running their tournaments and having practice game nights, but there's not much recruiting coming from the people left there.
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